Джеффри Дивер - The Midnight Lock

So I need to make the process as silent as possible.

If I don’t, it could be the disaster of 2019 all over again.

And I cannot let that happen.

In the stairwell of Carrie Noelle’s building, I listen closely.

Silence.

Now. Go.

Fast, I’m into the hallway and at her door.

First, the knob lock. Three seconds, it’s open.

And the SecurPoint 85?

Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

People are lazy and often don’t bother to lock the deadbolt. Or they’re forgetful.

I twist the knob and push.

Ah, but Carrie Noelle has been diligent, turning the latch before it was jammy time. The SecurPoint 85 is snug.

Go...

In goes the tension wrench, and I turn it, putting torsion on the plug with my left hand.

My right inserts the sharpened rake. Feeling the pins as I move the rake up and down, back and forth. Seeing them in my mind’s eye — I’ve dismantled a hundred locks, touched the pins, smelled the metal, felt all the parts heavy in my hand.

I lose myself in the process of becoming the key.

A dark side of zen...

I’m not religious but I consider lock-picking mystical, akin to the transfiguration of Jesus from man to spirit. Buddha from ignorance to enlightenment. Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White.

Click, click.

There are ten pins in this lock — two in each hole. Manipulating them.

I have not been breathing since I started.

Little finger, left hand, keeps taut the tension wrench, while the rake probes.

Fifteen seconds...

Push, push... But gently. Don’t anger those pins that have yet to be tricked up into their tunnels. You can’t bully them. They have to be seduced.

Click, click...

Then the wrench swivels, and the one-inch-throw deadbolt leaves the strike panel.

I’ve done it!

The SecurPoint is a disgrace to its name.

In twenty seconds, no less.

I stand, shoot graphite on the hinges. Then I’m closing the door with outer-space silence.

Carrie is not an alarm kind of girl, so there is no need to flood the house with RF waves, or to spend the first five seconds of the Visit cutting wires.

A few steps inside. I listen.

I hear the hum of the refrigerator. The bubbling from the aquarium.

It’s dark but not black. One thing I’ve learned is that unless you mount thick shades on all the windows, New York — Manhattan particularly — is filled with illumination. Light from a million sources bleeds inside through dozens of tiny fissures. This is true every minute of every day.

When my eyes acclimate I walk, cautiously, farther into the apartment itself.

I’m moving through a long hallway. I pass a door, closed presently. It leads to a small bedroom. Beside the door sit a half-dozen children’s toys, among them an eerie-faced doll, a wooden locomotive, a puzzle, also wood, in which play involves rearranging letters to spell words.

I continue past the bedroom down the corridor. The kitchen is to the left, living room to the right. Comfortable couches and chairs, fake leather. A pommeled coffee table, covered with magazines and makeup and socks and more toys. The aquarium is impressive. I know nothing about fish but the colors are quite appealing.

In the back is the larger bedroom.

I take my brass knife from my pocket and open it, giving the faintest of clicks (I have graphited it too). Gripping the handle hard, the blade side up.

If I had been heard and was about to be attacked, now is the moment when it would happen.

I step inside.

But here she dozes. Pretty Carrie Noelle. She’s sprawled on the bed in a tangle of purple floral sheets and a bedspread that seems too thick for the temperature in the apartment, which is not that cool. But this is what she’s chosen for swaddling. People wage a war against insomnia and will use whatever weapon or tactic gives them advantage.

I fold the knife and replace it in my pocket.

Then look over Carrie once more.

Most women I’ve observed in the Visits sleep on their sides, a pillow or bunch of blankets between their legs. This is not a sexual thing, I’m convinced. Also, no one wears pajamas, much less nightgowns, unless it’s a sexy garment and there’s a man on the sinister side of the bed (as happened once — a surprise discovery that resulted in my fast retreat). No, the de rigueur outfit for bed among the female persuasion is sweatpants or boxer shorts and a T-shirt. And you’d be surprised at how many single women, of all ages, are accompanied to slumber with a stuffed animal or two.

I return to the living room. I look at her bookshelf. Carrie enjoys murder mysteries and bios and cookbooks, and — as in every apartment I’ve visited — she has a thousand-dollar collection of self-help and exercise books. Most, hardly cracked.

In the kitchen I find a bottle of red wine, an Australian shiraz. It’s a good one — and it features a screw top. (Those from Down Under, I recall from the formal and fancy meals of my childhood, my father lecturing, are not afraid to sell fine wines in easy-to-open bottles. And why should they be? It only makes sense.)

I dig for a crystal glass and fill it halfway. I sip. It’s quite decent. Then I correct myself. It’s quite good . “Decent” does not mean quality. It means only the opposite of indecent — that is, not obscene. Anyone who practices the science of locksmithing knows that precision is everything. A thousandth of a thousandth of a millimeter of error in the bitting of a key will render it useless — except for steadying a wobbly table leg.

I walk to the front bedroom, quietly open the door. I look in and see all the children’s toys. And the crib in the corner.

Children can make the Visits problematic. Waking up at all hours and screaming for attention.

I’ll get back to this room but for the moment I return to the bathroom outside Carrie’s bedroom.

There’s a lipstick on the counter that describes itself as Passion Rouge. I’ll use this to sign my calling card, the page from the Daily Herald .

I wonder what the police think of it. If they’re diligent, and they probably are, they’ll be considering the articles on the signature page, the ads on the reverse side, who the editors are, who the publisher is...

Are they thinking about more than that? Are they thinking page 3, the February 17 edition?

3

2/17

I suspect — no, I know — they aren’t.

Where should I leave the paper? I wonder.

I decide, unimaginatively: underwear drawer again. I’m sure that results in tears. Then the newspaper slips from my mind and, gazing around the cozy bathroom, I fantasize about another outcome for Carrie Noelle.

I’m recalling the famous murder scene in the movie Psycho . The victim is in the shower when the killer slips into the bathroom, holding high the knife with which he plans to slash her to death. The tension is unbearable...

I imagine a variation. I don’t leave the signed newspaper at all and slip into the darkness, as planned.

No, I’m standing in the bathtub, hiding behind the drawn shower curtain. There I wait — for Carrie to walk sleepily inside to start her morning routine... and make that pretty face all the prettier.

She awoke at dawn.

Some noise from the street broke her slumber.

Squinting at the bedside clock. Nearly 5 a.m. Damn.

Groggy from the pill last night, Carrie Noelle sighed. If I fall asleep now, I can still get one hour and twenty minutes.

Staring at the ceiling.

If I fall asleep now , I can still get one hour and eighteen minutes.

Noelle gripped the long pillow she embraced when she slept and rolled to her left side.